Assisted dying: Looking beyond the bill

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for England and Wales in Westminster has now fallen after MPs voted against it at Second Reading on 11 September 2026.

But for us as psychiatrists, the conversation does not end there. Throughout the Bill’s passage, we sought to engage constructively and with a focus on finding solutions.

We remained neutral on the principle of assisted dying, recognising the range of views within our profession, while asking an important practical question:

If assisted dying were to become law in England and Wales, what safeguards would be needed to protect patients and ensure psychiatrists can fulfil their role safely and appropriately?

That engagement brought some difficult but important issues to the fore. Ahead of the Bill’s Second Reading in the House of Commons earlier this month, we made sure that psychiatry’s voice was part of the parliamentary conversation: attending an event with parliamentarians from across the debate, holding a joint virtual briefing with the RCGP and RCP for MPs, sharing a College briefing with MPs, and meeting directly with the Bill’s sponsor, Lauren Edwards MP.

Through those conversations, we were able to explain where we believed the Bill needed greater clarity and stronger safeguards, particularly around the distinction between assisted dying and suicide prevention, and the importance of a genuinely biopsychosocial assessment that takes account of mental illness, psychological distress and the wider circumstances of someone’s life.

We also pressed for greater clarity about what would be expected of psychiatrists, including in assessing capacity and in any proposed role on multidisciplinary panels. For psychiatrists, these are not simply questions of legislation or process. They speak directly to our clinical responsibilities and to the care and support we provide to people at particularly vulnerable moments in their lives.

Although this particular Bill will go no further, assisted dying remains an issue that we, as a profession, need to keep talking about and considering, not least because public attitudes to assisted dying seem to be changing. As Jersey prepares to implement its assisted dying legislation and establish its assisted dying service, and other countries continue to grapple with similar questions, the debate may well return to Westminster and the devolved nations in the future.

We want our members to feel informed, prepared and able to contribute their expertise to those conversations. We’re therefore developing a paper for members, which we hope to share in the coming months, that explores the fundamental principles that could impact psychiatrists and what future developments in assisted dying could mean for our profession.

This article was included in our September 2026 eNewsletter.